Marijuana, the Gateway Drug?

My step sister has smoked marijuana and says that it leads her to
heroin. I say that is nonsense, because I smoke it and I never
want heroin, or any other hard drug for that matter. Now she’s
smoking cigarettes and claims they’re safer for you that pot. She’s
all cleaned up now, but I’m afraid that cigarettes are going to make
her start shooting up again. I want to make her see that pot is not
a gateway drug, and can be very beneficial to you. Any advice will
be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Sean

Sean,
This is an important issue that has been propagandized to the max. The whole concept of a gateway drug is meaningless in psychological terms. There is absolutely no proof that doing one drug would lead to another specific drug being used by an individual. What psychologists (and geneticists) have proven is that certain people are suseptible to becoming addicts of one sort or another. It’s called addictive personality. And it’s the major factor (that they’ve found so far) to determine whether someone will become addicted to drugs, cigarettes, alcohol or gambling. Which one the person chooses can sometimes be determined by genetic predisposition.

So if someone has an addictive personality, then sooner or later that person will succumb to an addiction. It could even be an addtiction to work! The whole thing is happening at the level of brain chemistry and scientists are just beginning to get a handle on it. The truth is there are drugs out there that can break the cycle of addiction for people, esp. those addicted to heroin for instance. Ibogaine is one drug that shows promising results with a very low relapse rate.

Marijuana too may well KEEP people off harder drugs, esp. alcohol. Many
people who abuse alcohol cut back their consumption once they start smoking
pot. It would sure be great if we could have some stats on this and we need
much more research to determine the effects and benefits of marijuana, but
of course the U.S. government would never allow open research on the subject
and has just now approved the first new studies of marijuana in something
like 30 years!

In the case of your stepsister, she may be correct that smoking cigarettes
is safer than marijuana FOR HER. This would be that she can purchase
cigarettes at the corner grocery store instead of having to seek out drug
dealers who may also have heroin readily available. This is the only
possible connection between marijuana and harder drugs is that the laws that
keep marijuana illegal, also keep the black market dealing marijuana along with
other hard drugs. So the temptation is always there, esp. when the
dealers run out of marijuana, smokers wanting to get high might opt for
another drug for their party if it’s available. So it’s not that it’s a
gateway, so much as that it is illegal that leads people to harder drugs.

Want proof of this claim? The Dutch have studied this far more than any
country, and when they permitted coffeeshops to sell marijuana and hashish,
they removed these drugs from the streets, and separated the users from the
hard drug dealers. Now there is ample supply of cannabis in Holland, and no
reason for those who use it to seek out other drugs! In fact the incidence
of all drug use in Holland is FAR BELOW that of the U.S. But of course the
U.S./DEA drug propaganda machine will never tell the truth about this.

So it’s one thing to decide not to use marijuana on a personal basis, and
it’s quite another to condemn marijuana as a gateway to other drugs. It’s
just another LIE.